A Live Node
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Do you want to be a node on the network of life? Constantly alive and in touch? Maybe you suffer from continuous partial attention.
The article is kind of funny actually. The author doing the interview while driving around, giving her own partial attention to the interview. At least that's what I hope and it's not partial attention to the road. Or at least, less partial attention.
I think this is a huge problem in today's world, especially as we are more connected with technology. It used to be that you could have some time to yourself on your commute or any other time in transit. You could get a few minutes to walk around the office, stop by a Starbucks for a latte, something to unwind. Your kids competed for your attention with others that they could see you talking with. You could enjoy a movie in peace. Even answering machines, as much as they were first decried by many people, gave you a chance to escape from unwanted calls.
Now most people carry cell phones. Or worse, Crackberrys. Conversations with someone face to face are interrupted constantly by call phones on the sports field, in movies, the restroom, and the worst, when you're writing some SQL content. No place is safe these days and as connectivity grows, with data services and wireless connections being deployed further and further, it becomes harder to get away.
Now I don't think that the advances are all bad. I like being able to call someone while driving on an errand, or even taking a call while shoveling manure when my wife is traveling. I get two things done at once, one usually not requiring much thought, and save some time in the day for other things. Like spending time with my kids.
But I think you have to draw some lines. Turn off your cell phone in places. Set the expectation that you're not always available. I know every call from your spouse could be an emergency, but you don't need to answer in the middle of a movie to hear that milk is low at home. Your kids don't deserve to be interrupted from their baseball or soccer game because your boss wants to ask you something.
There are definite times where you need to be reached and it's great that you can. But setup some code or page. Use 911 or something similar if someone really has an emergency, but wanting to ask if you want pizza for dinner is not an emergency. A query about how your project is going is not an emergency. Your child going to the hospital for stitches is.
As we become more connected, the need for boundaries becomes more important. Not only to show respect for those around us, but also to keep our sanity. The thresholds for alerts in life are as important as the need for alerts. Learn to miss a few calls or emails and pick them up later.
Those of us standing in front of you and trying to carry on a conversation with you will appreciate it.
Steve Jones
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What I always found strange is that so many people "need" to be connected. Eight years ago I was on a fishing trip, my cell phone rang, and I answered it. It was work. I asked two questions: "Who died?" No one. "Is there an apocalypse I don't know about?" There wasn't. My cell phone went for a swim seconds later.
Since then, I have a new cell phone, but its number is known to only two people -- my wife, and one emergency contact whose judgement I trust (in case the apocalypse does come, I would like to know).
I believe with every fibre of my being that the only reason people have to "stay connected" is to feel important. Even the two times in the last eight years that have turned into critical need issues, benefited from my not being immediately accessible. It gave people time to think. In one case the site staff solved the issue and told me later, creating at least one new skill for everyone involved; and in the other, it highlighted the vulnerability the client had been told about a dozen times, and made them change their business model slightly.
Specialized surgeons need beepers -- businesspeople never have, no matter how important they think they are. In fact, if you want to feel really special, get disconnected and stand your ground. There's a lot more power in being that person.
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Thanks for that, Steve. I read the article whilst reviewing a new policy for my boss!
Check out this TV commercial being run by Orange (cell network) in the UK at the moment; don't know if you have Orange over there or this ad:
http://www.ephinx.com/tvadverts/141/orange-new-york-blackout-advert.html
"Orange shows how the blackout of electricity affected New York in 14 August 2003, and explains how a man had only noticed the diversity of the city when his mobile was off and he walked home."
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Thank you
[font="Arial"]Clifton G. Collins III[/font]
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What a good point.
I have gotten to the point where if I'm speaking with someone I don't take the call no matter who it is. If it's my wife and an emergency she will call back immediately maybe 2 or 3 times. (We don't have kids so thankfully emergencies are limited). She knows I'm busy and will call back only during a true emergency. If it's work they can leave a message or call back again.
I find it amazing how so many people do feel they have to take a call. I used to sit next to a guy who would be on the cell phone and get a call on the desk phone and feel like he had to get the desk phone call. It was amazing to me. I asked him, why did we have Voice Mail? There was a time he called me during a day off, got the desk phone call and put me on hold. I hung up on him!
I use a cell phone for convenience to be able to stay in touch but I don't feel bound by it. Of course I've always felt that way about a land line also.
GMH
Glenn Henson -
Some of things I do well at work, analysing data, making drawings, keeping on top of a schedule work considerably better when there are no interruptions.
The downside is that people will have to wait. In my current job there are 2 people, so that is not often an issue.
That being said, am I still paying attention if I'm folding my origami irises while attending a meeting? http://www.sterbal.com/origami
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It has taken 4+ years to get it through to my wife, kids and others, not to call me at the office. Particularly on my cell phone. Work hours are time I am paid to focus my attention on my employers needs. And if it is off hours, I am still hesitant to answer and often jutst ignore my cell until I get two or three "missed" calls in a short span of time.
My family and friends now know what an emergency truly is. I refuse to be on an electronic leash of my own design.
Unfortunately, I have tried the ignore the desk phone thing, even with my bosses blessing, and have then been called to the carpet for not answering, by the same boss. This is of course the same boss who I, unfortunately, gave my personal cell number to a while back. And after calling me on days off with some rather dim questions that in no way constituted anything close to an emergency, my cell number mysteriously changed and only one trusted person at the office now has this contact number, with instructions not to share it with anyone.
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I was given a cell phone 3 years ago. Presumably because socks were more expensive.
It had £10 of free calls on it and I still have £1.50 left on the phone.
I'm also on the call preference service so I rarely get sales calls.
A friend had an answer machine with the message "John isn't answering the phone right now because he is avoiding someone. Leave your name and number and if he doesn't call back, it was you"!
One of the banes of modern existence is that the previous generation expected 28 days for delivery and if they wrote a letter they were impressed if a reply came back 3 days later. This meant that the pace of life was more relaxed.
Nowadays we get swamped with people all expecting instant responses to stuff that really isn't that important.
These days you can get a reply to something in under a minute.
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I have people always complaining to me " I called your cell phone but it was off". That is what the little power button is used for, I explain.
I do not use my cell phone as a gotta "be connected" device except when I want to be contacted by someone.
Otherwise, I just carry it mainly for emergencies. Many a 911 or *273 (non-emergency) help call has been placed to help others at accident scenes, fires or broken down vehicles along the road at 20 below. I once had to convince a young mother and small child to get into my truck instead of walking along a busy road, in the dark, with a strong wind and wind chill well below zero while only wearing light clothes in wintertime Alaska. I handed her my cell phone to hold so she could call for help if she felt threatened or just to call someone to tell them what was going on. That helped her to decide to get in and I drove them to their destination a few miles away. The little girl was very cold and scared. In that case, having a cell phone made all the difference.
It also helps when I am not home or at work and I know one of the kids or wife is out driving around beyond the "normal" range. Then it is a lifeline to them and a comfort to me.
The only work related times are when I take a day off. Sometimes I leave town and travel to a remote location and I will allow them to call me in case of a computer "emergency". But, I also charge the company $1 per minute (and that rate is going up) for calling me on my cell. It is not a company owned phone and if they want to contact me that way, then that rate is cheaper for them then paying for a cell phone all the time.
And guess what, I pretty much turn it off when I go into restaurants or other similar places where they are a distraction. Some of my friends are good about that as well, others struggle with taking the call or not while we are talking. If they do, they get to buy lunch! For other friends, the cell phone is their business lifeline and I understand that and tolerate the interruptions.
Now lets talk about cell phones and driving...
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Staying 'conencted' is a conscious choice that each individual makes. This however is not without consequence as we all know. I personally have been on 24x7 call for more than a decade (on call ,on and off a decade prior as well, but not continuously). What everyone seems to forget in making this conscious choice is that it is up to them to set the expectations of others regarding this facet of life. Without setting these expectations, you will have no life. Before my present cell phone (personal) and Blackberry (aka Crack-berry), there was a cell phone and text paging, earlier back cell phone and plain paging. Yet further back cell phone, and even prior to that, just plain old paging. So things really have not changes. Folks can still get hold of me when needed. It all boils down to setting the expectations of others !
RegardsRudy KomacsarSenior Database Administrator"Ave Caesar! - Morituri te salutamus."
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People have touched on a couple of points here.
Attention deficit is one product of all this connectivity. Many pundits have pointed out that "attention deficit" is really "noise overload+information deficit;" you can't detect the important information because its buried within all the nonessential, if its there at all. There are too many unrelated demands for your attention. If the phone rings once a day, you will answer it immediately. If it rings every 5 minutes, you ignore it figuring its just another telemarketer. Unfortunately, its more and more difficult knowing when you really need to answer the phone. It would be great if my wife had a code so "Its lunchtime, and I just got out of my meeting, are you out of your meeting yet?" calls just went to voicemail if my phone was set to "in a meeting" mode. Better yet, she dials, and if my phone is set to "in a meeting" she could enter a code to break through or just leave the voice message.
Ubiquitous, univeral and seamlessly integrated connectedness has placed an emphasis on flattening the communications experience. So I should be able to get a call to my home phone automatically routed to my work and cell phones, no matter how the call originated. That's nice, but we need some way to differentiate calls within that global network. It used to be emergencies went to my pager; now that everything can go to my cell phone we need something else to advise us of the nature of the call and control what gets routed. (Ever gotten a fax forwarded to your cell phone?) I can give my wife's phone numbers a distinctive ring, and give different rings to her office and cell phone numbers, but there is no way for her to indicate from her cell phone how important the call may be. I cannot indicate that I want vibrate mode except for emergencies from my wife or the call-back from the vendor support rep. We need this added to the infrastructure. Possibly permanent and temporary alert codes to be appended to the phone number when dialing.
SQL Server at least makes a start, when it allows you to limit the hours when a pager alert should be sent. However, it doesn't allow you to indicate that certain jobs warrant off hour pages but other jobs don't.
This is something to keep in mind when desiging systems. Making sure that information coming from the systems is properly segmented and directed to allow it to be delivered appropriately. This includes some conventions to allow communications to be differentiated by automated rules. I use MS Outlook rules on e-mails from our SQL Servers to delete some and route others to a folder I check periodically; others I want left in my normal in-box so I notice them immediately. A few simple rules based on standard conventions work better than a hundred ad hoc rules with unintended interactions.
David Lathrop
DBA
WA Dept of Health -
Arent we all fundimentally connected anyway? You dont kill your own cows, make your own clothes, distill your own petroleum, pave the roads yourself.
A cell phone is just allowing those who are connected to you in a passive way contact you in a active manner.
The UK people and Canadians would find it odd probably how much government asks for the citizens opinon, in the States, you guys get requests for voting on every municipal matter put on the table.
Our peoples are told we dont have to be asked, the issues are still connected to us but we leave it up to people who are paid to figure it out.
And as for maknig SQL Server decide when it should contact you, base it on event log levels, if greater than this then wake me in the morning. Or if you do not like writing to the event log, use DTS to output to a txt file and then read the 'log' every ten minutes, if X = CALL ME NOW MF, then send alert, else delete txt file and recrawet blank one. ( dont know if I can get a green card to be mustered up, but let meknow if you need some other tricks, I like greenbacks)
For me the only time I worry is when I STOP getting alerts, ala "When the machine stops" by EM FORESTER, I would say my favourite SciFi story ever. Turned into Logans Run, goofy, one might argue first, 'The Prisoner" and remade more recently "The Island" .. heavy on the special effects, choppy plot .. but Anything with Steve Buscemi in it is alright by me.
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It has now become a favourite travel game with us...
1)on long distance drives - count the # of people that drive past using cell phones.
2)in the airport - # of cell phone users - in the lobby, on the shuttle bus, in the airplane just before takeoff and landing etc...
I loved Frank Buchan's post though am not sure if people stay connected to feel important or because they're totally insecure...
And as always David's comments are a laugh a minute...I think that the remarkable message his friend has is brilliant! - and David - if you got a cell phone because socks were presumably more expensive then I guess that eliminated ties as well right ?!?!
More than wanting to stay connected I cannot comprehend the trivia that people stay connected about...it's one thing if you're a giddy teenager spending hours on the phone with your "best friend" but quite another when nothing is private & personal anymore and people are talking about everything from a difficult childbirth to the two-timing husband to menu for weekend dinner...and no attempt made to lower the volume one jot...
As for the near misses I've had with people who drive & talk at the same time - there's justifiable cause for road rage right there..
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
Is it legal to use your phone whilst driving in the US? In the UK it was made illegal a couple of years ago to use a handheld phone whilst driving (handsfree OK but various groups lobbying for total ban).
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A pet peeve of mine...not a nationwide ban at all...handful of states ban talking while driving completely (think only 4 right now)...some have partial bans (mainly school bus drivers and teens) - as for the rest - the law doesn't interfere with your urgent & compelling need to shoot the breeze while driving...
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!**
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